Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Qatar and UAE hire fired AFC Bin Hammam associates

Qatari and
United Arab Emirates soccer bodies have provided employment for dismissed former
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) senior staff implicated in an independent auditor’s
report that questions the financial management of the group by its suspended
president, Qatari national Mohammed Bin Hammam.

The fact
that the Qatar and UAE soccer bodies agreed to hire personnel that AFC let go
because of their relationship to Mr. Bin Hammam is likely to prompt further
questions about his links to the Qatari royal family and his potential involvement in
Qatar’s controversial winning of the right to host the 2022 World Cup.

Mr. Bin
Hammam is fighting charges of bribery and corruption and potentially
allegations of money laundering, busting of US sanctions and tax evasion as a
result of the auditor’s report as well as his ousting last year as vice
president of world soccer body FIFA. Mr. Bin Hammam is at the center of a
number of soccer corruption scandals that have rocked world soccer and FIFA in
recent years.

Qatar has
long downplayed Mr. Bin Hammam’s involvement in its World Cup bid despite his
past close relationship to the Gulf state’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al
Thani, and key role in world soccer.

Mr. Bin
Hammam has appealed against an AFC decision earlier this month to suspend him
as president for 30 days pending review of the report by PriceWaterhouse Cooper
(PWC) that alleges financial mismanagement of AFC accounts to his own benefit
as well as that of family, friends and soccer bodies across the globe.

The report
also raises questions about Mr. Bin Hammam’s management of a $1 billion master
rights agreement (MRA) with Singapore-based World Sport Group (WSG) and a $300
million broadcasting rights contract with the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera television
network as well as his financial relationship to parties with possible vested
interests in those deals.

The report
provides the Kuala Lumpur-based AFC with the reasonable suspicion of a legal
offence that it under Malaysian law is obliged to report to authorities. It
also leaves the AFC with little choice but to launch a full-fledged
investigation of its own. The AFC, which
has Malaysian nationals, including a member of a royal family on its executive
committee, can extend Mr. Bin Hammam’s suspension for a maximum of another 20
days, ten of which must be used to prepare a case against him. It also has to
report its finding to Malaysian authorities within that period.

The report
says former AFC assistant secretary general and director of finance Amelia Gan
managed AFC accounts which Mr. Bin Hammam used “to facilitate personal
transactions as if they were his personal bank accounts.” It also alleges that
Ms. Gan was involved in negotiating AFC’s contract with WSG that is being
questioned. Ms. Gan is currently employed as club licensing officer by Qatar
Stars League, which is headed by a member of the Qatari royal family, Sheikh
Hamad Bin Khalifa Bin Ahmad Al Thani.

Similarly,
the former director of Mr. Bin Hammam’s AFC office, Jenny Be, who like Ms. Gan and AFC’s director of Vision Asia,
Michelle Chai, was let go last year after Mr. Bin Hamman became embroiled in
the FIFA scandal, is also employed by Qatar Star League as club liaison officer. AFC assistant secretary general Carlo Nohra left voluntarily.

Mr. Nohra,
a former WSG vice president for corporate strategy whose $19,767 car loan was
paid by Mr. Bin Hammam according to the PWC report, “played a prominent role in
negotiating the detailed clauses of the MRA,” PWC said. Mr. Nohra was chief
executive officer of the UAE football league until January of this year. He has
since become CEO of UAE soccer club Al Ain FC LLC. Ms. Chai is the UAE
professional league’s director of club licensing and professional affairs.

The league
is managed by the UAE Football Association headed by Yousef al-Serkal, an AFC
executive committee member who is widely seen as close to Mr. Bin Hammam. Mr.
Al-Serkal is campaigning to succeed Mr. Bin Hammam as AFC president. Ms. Chai,
according to AFC sources, has accompanied Mr. Al-Serkal to AFC meetings.

Supporters
of Mr. Bin Hammam who like some former AFC employees credit him for his turning
around of Asian soccer and generosity describe him as a man who embraced new
ideas, enjoyed trying out new concepts and was eager to adopt best practices. “But
there’s also that baggage that is universal in world soccer. He’s just the one
who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar,” said a former AFC employee. He
said he like many others in AFC had been aware of Mr. Bin Hammam’s questionable
financial management. The PWC report came to a similar conclusion.

It is
nonetheless not clear if the allegations in the PWC report prove to be true why
Mr. Bin Hammam used AFC accounts for questionable dealings that could have been
done through accounts that would have been harder to trace. Similarly, it is
not clear why a man of Mr. Bin Hammam’s global stature apparently openly flaunted
international standards of conflict of interest and good governance even if
some of those practices are endemic to post-oil wealth Gulf culture.

The former
employee said Mr. Bin Hammam had promoted personnel to positions they would
have unlikely been able to occupy otherwise. He said Ms. Gan had been a
bookkeeper prior to becoming assistant secretary general and director of
finance. Ms. Be, he said, was a secretary before being elevated to head of Mr.
Bin Hammam’s office and Ms. Chai was a development officer before also being
appointed assistant secretary general.

The
employee said the WSG contract had enabled Mr. Bin Hammam “to live an
extravagant life style” and shower his extravagance on AFC itself. He described
“over the top” AFC functions at which personnel and guests were given jewelry.

He said Mr.
Bin Hammam’s decision in 2008 to invite the heads of member associations of the
Confederation of African Football (CAF) to stop off in Kuala Lumpur for a
shopping spree before continuing on to that year’s FIFA congress in Sydney
instead of travelling to Australia together with other FIFA members had sparked
irritation among Asian football bodies, particularly those of Japan and South
Korea.

The
employee as well as sources close to the AFC investigation of Mr. Bin Hammam
said that the Japanese, South Korean, Jordanian and Kuwaiti soccer associations
have long been unhappy with the WSG contract which they saw as unfavorable to
the Asian confederation. More than half of the revenues derived from the
contract are believed to originate in Japan and South Korea. “Everybody who had
a look at the contract could see that it was completely in favor of WSG,” one
of the sources said. “Japan fought it hard. A number of associations, including
Jordan and Kuwait protested. Nothing however was taken into consideration at
the 2009 AFC congress,” said another source.

Sporticos

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James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile